'Rain' a bit cloudy

Acting two parts should call for two salaries, but the cast of "Three Days of Rain" doesn't seem to mind overextending their duties.

"Three Days of Rain," a play directed by Kathleen Gaffney, is simple in scope, involving only three characters and one set, a New York City loft.

The plot revolves around a brother named Walker, a sister named Nan and their lifelong friend Pip, who have met at the loft to attend the reading of Ned's will, the father of Walker and Nan.

Pip's father, Theo, used to be Ned's partner in architecture and both lived in the loft that Walker now inhabits. Many secrets are revealed through the character's tense conversations.

The action of the first act is driven by secrets presented in the form of Ned's diary.

The play's three actors, Michael Laurence, Eric Martin Thomas and Sara Sulley, play dual roles in each act. Laurence plays the neurotic, un-domesticated Walker and his unconfident, stuttering father. He exudes much emotion in both performances, but his zealous performance of Walker overshadows his restrained portrayal of Ned.

Thomas plays the successful and charming Pip as well as his father Theo, an ambitious architect. Pip delightfully bestows comedy amongst a story filled with grief, which suggests that he is the anchor of a family he is barely a part of. In the second act, Thomas' Theo is barely visible and gracefully falls into obscurity.

Sulley plays Nan, Walker's responsible sister, as well as Lina, the optimistic and aloof girlfriend of Theo. Both Nan's and Lina's parts are underwritten, but Sulley makes the most of what she is given.

Playwright Richard Greenburg, who first received acclaim with his mid-eighties play "Eastern Standard," seems more preoccupied with his ideas rather than his characters.

Each figure represents a certain part of society. Walker is the rebel, Nan is the survivor and Pip is a man who is unbearably blas?(c) about what society has and hasn't given him.

In the second act, the assumptions made by the characters about their parents are tested and subsequently proven wrong. The play has a strong underlying theme pertaining to the deterioration caused by living under the shadow of the past.

The play's ending may feel smugly ambiguous, but it's clear that Greenburg feels the conclusion should be left to the whims of the audience.

"Three Days of Rain" is running now thru Nov. 12 at Studio Arena Theater.